All the best for 2023! Ready? Neither am I. A reflection on the 2013 advice marketplace and three thoughts on what advice might look like in ten years – 2033 – might be helpful for your steps in 2023. Despite the exceptional upheavals over the past decade,...
Advisers thrive because they anticipate, worry, prepare and manage complex client issues. Good advisers are masters at it. Great advisers are masters at doing the same for themselves. There are several hurdles facing advisory firms in 2023 – for advisory teams...
Listened to any of Pushkin’s podcasts? They pump out some great ones. A favourite is “The Happiness Lab”, which lives up to a promise showing how our brains are not always our best guides for our well-being or progress. Another one – “Against the Rules” – is just as...
Brian “Digger” Booker taught me to fly. One cool Sunday morning, after landing VH-TUC at Camden airport, Digger asked me to pull over into one of the aircraft waiting bays just off the runway. He was getting out. He believed it was time for my first solo flight. What...
We’ve been looking at rural properties. One near Little Hartley looks special. Why? It sounds ridiculous, but it’s the driveway. It has a long, winding, tree-lined driveway lined with well-established liquid ambers. As you near the home, the trees open...
A tell-tale our family is on holiday is a jigsaw puzzle. A Stackpool holiday isn’t a holiday without a tricky new puzzle. The puzzling can take all holidays, with the puzzle spot remaining frustratingly off-limits for non-puzzling activities until the puzzle has...
Do you ask your doctor what her fees will be next year? No, neither do I. Why do clients ask what the future ongoing fees will be for their financial advisers? Because, unlike doctors, they pay ongoing rent to their advisers. Is that typical of professionals?...
I used to sell shoes. Florsheim shoes. I thought I was pretty good at it. However, my mates used to say anyone could sell shoes when the shop is just outside the foyer of a Hilton Hotel. “What do you expect? If you’re going to sell fancy shoes, you’re in the perfect...
I’ve messed up again. I’ve used a story in two of my books incorrectly. The story is of a small group of WWII refugees scared so witless they have paid a guide to flee through freezing, mountainous, and enemy-infested terrain into safer territories. The...
Ever over-eaten? To almost being sick? My mother, Meg, had no sympathy for such a thing. Like sunburn and talking too much, she reckoned you only had yourself to blame. That’s the tricky bit. Realising you are the problem. Similar to the feeling of over-filling an...
